Getting Comfortable With Feeling Sad

Alexandra Mack - 9 Oct 17

I have always regarded myself as quite a ‘happy-go-luck’ sort of girl but recently I have been finding myself considering that it should no longer an option for me.  I have begun to wonder if it is possible to be both happy and sad at the same time, or whether these two emotions are mutually exclusive?

In the very room where we learnt the news of our little Izzy’s fate, my husband and I discussed that we would not let this ordeal define us; that we still were lucky to have one another and our other daughter Bobbi.  Fast forward to present day and all of the milestones that were set out for us to reach have been met; with the post mortem being the concluding event (4 and a half months wait for that bad boy).

So no further guidance now, out on my lonesome and how am I feeling…pretty confused to be honest.  I still find joy in moments, mostly Bobbi or Lola (our cockapoo puppy) based, but I would be lying if I said that I don’t find myself crying most days too.  They say that time is supposed to be a healer but how much time is an unknown quantity, with hours turning into days, days turning into weeks and weeks turning into months when all of a sudden you realise that you have pretty much hit the five month marker.  How an earth has that happened?

In truth I do a lot of my crying by myself as I feel that others around me are expecting me to still be holding strong, as it has been five months already….  I don’t even tell my husband most of the time that I get upset during the day as I don’t think he will understand that sometimes you just cry because you are sad at the whole situation and not at any one thing in particular to do with it.  Then I look at Bobbi and what she is doing at the tender age of 2 years and 3 months and I am so filled with happiness.  She is here, growing and learning on a daily basis and you can’t help but feel joy.

As a person I like to understand things and the reasoning behind things and since losing Izzy I have tried to convince myself that although its really sad that was born sleeping, its one of the kinder ways to lose a child in that you never got to know them.  This is a very objective way of trying to make sense of the situation I find myself in and even as I say or share it now I am not even convincing myself.  You never got to know them for Pete’s sake!  She would have heard us but we never heard her and what her voice sounded like.  I will never know what colour eyes she had, and she never saw mine.  So many things that will never happen.  This situation that we find ourselves in is pants, like proper pants and theres no two ways about it.  I don’t need to be objective in trying to pigeon hole it, and this is new territory for me.

I have known grief before but losing a child is hard, so very hard – it consumes every part of you.  You want to be sad out of respect for you child but you also want to be happy for the very same reason.  You want to find the strength to push on and make changes and promote awareness but at the same time you are drained of emotion that some days you want to do nothing at all.

So can I be happy and sad at the same time?  In truth the answer is “yes”.  Yes of course it is possible to be both happy and sad – you have to be!  I am living proof of that and I know through all of the wonderful vilomahs I have met to date that I am not alone.

Alexandra Mack

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